Infinera, the provider of Intelligent Transport Networks, unveiled ICE5, the industry’s first 2.4 terabits per second (Tb/s) optical engine and the latest addition to the company’s family of Infinite Capacity Engines. ICE5 is targeted at internet content providers (ICPs) scaling connections between data centres and communications service providers (CSPs) planning fiber-deep architectures including distributed access architecture (DAA) and 5G mobile backhaul. Optical engines play a key role in maximising both the technical and economic performance of optical network systems. At Infinera, the pace of optical engine innovation is on fast forward, building on the success of ICE4 in metro, long-haul and subsea applications, to introduce ICE5 and demonstrate an increasing cadence toward ICE6.

Gartner’s forecast for cloud computing anticipates a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% through 2020 and the Ericsson Mobility Report expects total mobile data traffic to rise at a CAGR of 42% through 2022, accelerating demand for optical network capacity at ICPs and CSPs worldwide.

ICE5 builds on the success of ICE4 to lead the industry in optical performance and economics by integrating Infinera’s fifth generation photonic integrated circuit with a FlexCoherent digital signal processor (DSP) and fine-grain software control to deliver 100 to 600 gigabits per second per wavelength in the industry’s first 2.4 Tb/s optical engine.

Jimmy Yu

ICE5 unlocks unprecedented capacity, reach, spectral and power efficiency, designed for over 40 Tb/s on a single fiber within a fraction of a data centre rack, increasing capacity up to 65% over currently deployed networks while reducing power by 60%.

Infinera Instant Network enables software automation of ICE-based platforms, allowing customers to pay for capacity as they need it, matching expense to revenue, increasing network agility and lowering total cost of ownership. More than 70 Infinera customers including the top three subsea customers and more than 60% of data centre interconnect customers rely on Infinera Instant Network to scale capacity on demand.

“Cloud and fiber-deep architectures will accelerate the demand for optical network capacity,” said Jimmy Yu, Dell’Oro Group’s vice president of Optical Transport and Mobile Backhaul. “This means future optical DWDM systems will have to deliver higher single wavelength speeds sooner and be agile enough to be used in metro as well as long haul environments. Infinera’s plan for ICE5 fits well with our five-year projection that DWDM demand will grow faster in metro access and aggregation locations due to data centre interconnect, 5G backhaul, and fiber-deep.”

“Innovation is on fast forward at Infinera as we build on our success with ICE4 to introduce ICE5 – the industry’s first 2.4 Tb/s optical engine,” said Dr. Dave Welch, Infinera founder, chief strategy and technology officer. “With ICE5 we are bringing our leading-edge technologies to market faster than ever, enabling our ICP and CSP customers to respond quickly to explosive bandwidth growth and ultimately win in their markets.”

Infinera Intelligent Transport Network platforms with ICE5 are planned for availability in early 2019.

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